With His Premiums More Than Doubling, This Dad Would “Rather File Bankruptcy” Than Deal with Obamacare

Kelsey Lucas /
October 23, 2013

Ben, Charla, Chaz, Zane, and Jenna Neptun

Ben Neptun and his wife Charla are “furious” their family’s health insurance premium will be raised from $419 to $899 per month because of Obamacare.

“We will absolutely go in a hole with this change,” Ben said.

Ben, 36, and Charla, 34, are both home health nurses in Mobile, Alabama. They each make about $23 an hour and have spent the last year learning how to budget and recover from debt acquired in previous marriages. With a blended family of five—a 15-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a 10-month-old—Ben said “there’s no room for several hundred dollars extra per month” in their budget.

The Neptun family buys their insurance directly from Blue Cross Blue Shield and spends about $2,000 a year on health care for the family, not including the monthly premium. So when Ben received a letter from Blue Cross explaining health insurance rates were increasing to comply with the new Obamacare regulations, he was angry. The new regulations in Obamacare force healthy families like his to “spend a boatload for nothing,” he explained.

“We’re healthy, non-obese, non-smokers, and on no medication,” Ben said. “I should not have to pay more.”

Ben said if he is forced to spend $500 more per month on insurance, then that’s $500 less that’s going into his family’s basic needs like groceries, savings, and his children’s college funds. He’d “rather file bankruptcy and do without health insurance” because “the fines are less.”